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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30085833">birdcatcher, starcatcher</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/daedalust/pseuds/daedalust'>daedalust</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Haikyuu!!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Hands are important, M/M, Secret Relationship, TW Mentions of Self-Harm, hoshiumi sexy, i wanted to capture moments of a hoshiumi i want to see, sachirou hirugami is like one of those puppy asmr videos</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 20:53:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,026</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30085833</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/daedalust/pseuds/daedalust</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <i>“You snatch the early bird right out of the sky before it escapes you, and crush its wings in the palm of your hand.”</i>
    <br/>
  </p>
</blockquote>Kourai is told that sleeping with his captain's brother is a mistake, but it doesn't feel like one.
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hirugami Sachirou/Hoshiumi Kourai</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>110</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>birdcatcher, starcatcher</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>At the inception of every young professional athlete’s career, they learn some basic ground rules. Take care of your health. Maintain your skills through practice. Clear your mind before a match— all basic principles that become a way of life. </p><p>Then, there’s one unspoken law of the land, implied by hushed whispers and cautionary tales of failed dalliances: </p><p>
  <em> Don’t shit where you eat.  </em>
</p><p>Kourai is sure that it’ll never be him. He’s so sure of it, that he fights alongside rivals he fixates on and joins a team where he’s known the captain since boyhood, with the confidence that he was impervious to such weakness. He’d never make that mistake; he’s a half-man, half-angel with his head so far up in the clouds that he can’t imagine a fall from grace. </p><p>Not at these heights. Not for anyone.</p><p>But hubris is a tale as old as time. Maybe if he’d paid more attention to stories outside his own, he’d know that Gods have fallen for mortals, winged angels have fallen from heaven, people aren’t gods, and Hoshiumi Kourai underestimates the boundaries of his emotions.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>At his first overseas training camp, Kourai falls sick on the third night, his insides churning out everything he’s eaten into the basin of an immaculately clean hotel toilet. His nose burns with cleaning products and acid, his eyes sting with tears, and the towel below his knees bores roughness into his skin. </p><p>He curses the food he’s had since he’s gotten here, his delicate stomach unable to handle anything outside his mother’s carefully prepared homemade meals. This isn’t a facet of volleyball he’s ever expected to encounter, the ever-changing scenery and constant travel that he’s never signed up for.</p><p>Kourai signed up for one setting. A volleyball court, a good team, and the world’s love against his back as he does everything that a man can do to a ball. He didn’t sign up for late nights of nausea, headlines and tabloids written by people prying into a window he’d <em> thought </em>he kept shut, and the inevitable gossip that would come out of his absences, whenever his body decides to be human.</p><p><em> This fucking sucks. </em> Kourai thinks, surrounded by nothing but hotel mirrors that reflect his own ugliness.</p><p>He stares into the pool of his own reflection, into his bloodshot eyes lined with shadows and the bathroom light above shimmering like a second sun. Kourai sees the shadow of a boy that’s been on his mind lately, that he thinks about every time he rotates to the back row and gets a full view of his captain’s back.</p><p><em> “I know now that sometimes, things aren’t going to be fine. And that’s okay.</em>”</p><p><em> Fuck it. </em>Kourai fishes the pocket of his shorts for his phone, swiping a hasty thumb over the background— a volleyball in the air, a reminder that his home is nowhere but mid-air in battle— and dials the one person that he thinks would understand him the most in his current state. Someone he doesn’t mind seeing him like this, heaving on a bathroom floor on all fours, feeling like utter shit.</p><p>“Sachirou?”</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p><em> Don’t shit where you sleep. </em> Kourai understands, and yet, he can’t resist the relief that comes from seeking comfort from places he knows he’ll get it. </p><p><em> This can’t be dangerous</em>, he thinks, peeking an eye out from under his pillow to see the face he knows so well, asleep on the other side of the screen at his desk. </p><p><em> It’s not like that</em>, he convinces himself, when he finds his mind wandering at lunch with his teammates, his ears perking up with Fukurou recalls a childhood story about his siblings. </p><p><em> It’s not even a habit. I can quit it if I want to. It’s just temporary, </em> Kourai tells himself, lying on his stomach in an unfamiliar bed, tapping the base of his laptop anxiously. </p><p>After three tones, the other side of the screen lights up.</p><p>“Hey Kourai-kun. Did you want to watch a movie together again?” Sachirou asks, and Kourai’s eyes trace over his face, lingering on the same pair of warm almond-shaped brown eyes that he’s known for half of his life. He imagines brushing over the fringe of newly trimmed chestnut hair on the other side of his screen; hair that still falls in waves and shifts in forms depending on how Sachirou’s feeling.</p><p>“No,” Kourai mutters, adjusting the camera to take in all of his face and capture all of his light that radiates from his hair and settles in his eyes. “Let’s just talk.”</p><p>9PM becomes midnight; midnight becomes 2AM; and Kourai falls asleep to the sound of Sachirou’s stories, like when they’d stay up whispering to each other under blankets in high school.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>Kourai returns to Japan, and calculates the distance and bus fares between all routes to Kokubunji Station to Hanako-koganei. He puts all of his mind, and more, to what he wants to make a reality. He gets what he wants, because he knows that their hearts remain the same after all of these years.</p><p>Within minutes of the door opening, Kourai’s empty apartment is filled to the brim with life, the sound of laughter eclipsing all the worries he’s amassed since they were gone. He misses the feeling of pushing against someone, being close enough to someone that touch was as natural as breathing, as he can count the number of times he’s touched his Schweiden Adlers teammates’ hands.</p><p>He misses the taste of alcohol, stinging his tongue and lips to celebrate the end of another series of battles, and he’s finally sharing this inebriated joy with someone else, who’s excited to be done with grueling exams. </p><p>Kourai, who’s never gone to college and will never go to college, listens to Sachirou’s stories intently, never taking his eyes off the infectious, constant smile that tricks him into believing they’re sixteen years old, sitting in a bedroom back in Nagano. He’s at ease, telling stories of his own pursuits and conquests on courts all around the world, that Sachirou’s followed closely through broadcasts and first-hand accounts.</p><p>Sachirou asks Kourai, almost too innocently, if he’s met anyone. Kourai thinks about it, and answers, “nobody new.”</p><p>Kourai isn’t sure how one scene dissolves into the other, his vision all bubbles and pink. He’s tasting fruity notes off someone else’s lips, teasing them about their longtime aversion to displays of affection. “<em>Not if it’s you</em>.” He rides the high of that statement, closing his eyes and leaning into an embrace that’s shaped like his body, muttering a name as unique as his own under his breath.</p><p>“Sachirou, can you stay the night?”</p><p>
  <em> Don’t shit where you eat. </em>
</p><p>Kourai knows, but it doesn’t feel like shit at all. Far from it.</p><p>It doesn’t feel like he’s sleeping with his captain’s brother. He knows that’s what it is, but it feels like something more pure than that.</p><p>It feels like he’s infatuated with a boy named Sachirou, who was born in the winter after his spring, who knows the name of every bird in the sky, and has always <em> liked </em> Kourai. Not the Little Giant, not Schweiden Adlers’s #16, the king of mid-air battles. Kourai<em>-kun </em>.</p><p>Kourai loves the way his name slips off the tip of Sachirou’s tongue, each syllable falling in place like pieces of a puzzle. The beginning of a story that only two people will ever know.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>During the off-season, Kourai’s heart yearns to return to his place among the stars; the light-studded heaven of polished floors, technicolor displays all around the stadium broadcasting his image, and crowds screaming his name. </p><p>In the same breath, when Kourai is in paradise, his heart aches for a home that he’s never been able to articulate. He’s always missing <em> something </em>, always searching for what he doesn’t have and then pursuing it with all of the force he’s honed from nature. Missing, waiting, fighting, struggling, flying, beating his wings against the cold air.</p><p>
  <em> Stop. </em>
</p><p>The same words he’d echoed years ago, to a scared boy with a shaking tall frame, bleeding knuckles, and no hair on his head, uttered back to him by the same boy, many years later. Kourai feels hands close over his wings, folding them delicately, and tucking them in. </p><p>The gentleness of that touch sends a shudder through Kourai’s body. He’s never known love through tenderness. He knows love through volleyball, as an ideal he has to fight to attain, instead of a home that accepts him in all of his forms. He thinks of love as something he must earn through strength, through awe and admiration as he shines like a luminary, and wins the attention of those who will amplify his story.</p><p>So when he’s offered all of that, without anything to prove, Kourai grabs onto it like he’s not sure if it’s real. His fingertips are rough, grazing over a jawline he’s memorized, to the point he can trace it even if he’s blindfolded. He bites into it, sharp teeth against soft skin that reminds him that he’s no angel, and all beast.</p><p>“Do you mind? Do you mind that I don’t know what the hell I’m doing right now?” Kourai breathes and tightens his hold, eyes closed to the forest floor sprawled in front of him. New territory, with his legs wrapped around and clinging onto a source of familiarity for comfort. “I’m basically an animal.”</p><p>“I like animals,” is all Sachirou answers, hand full of feathers and eyes full of stars.</p><p>Sachirou’s words are all Kourai needs to hear to dive headfirst into the unknown. As always.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <em> “You snatch the early bird right out of the sky before it escapes you, and crush its wings in the palm of your hand.” </em>
</p><p>Sachirou is six years old, when he watches his grandfather who had taught his father before him, the act of killing a spike in its trajectory. A kill block, his <em> oji-san </em> marvels, one of life’s greatest pleasures. </p><p>He chases this so-called ‘great pleasure’ for years, becoming the silent skyscraper among his peers, following the ball with his eyes and body, appearing like he’ll die if he doesn’t reach it. A ball soars past him, from one end of the court to the other like a baby bird, spreading out its splendid wings for the first time and gliding with the wind, when Sachirou appears— and kills it.</p><p>Stretches out his hands, fights the rotating ball with every joint in his finger, and strips off its wings. Sachirou blocks the ball, slams it down into the court, and spikers gaze up at him with the joy of playing wiped out of their eyes. He’s damn good at it. </p><p>“You have bird-catching hands,” his father jokes, proudly running a finger over his callouses. <em> Bird-catching hands</em>. </p><p>The words echo through his head, a persistent melody that turns into obsession. He does it again, and again, and again. His hands ache and grow tired, he starts counting the birds that fly past his head, listens to their mocking songs.</p><p>Sachirou hates catching birds. He preys on them, breaks their wings, envies them. He hates his bird-catching hands, scrapes them against a surface that’s unforgiving and cold, and paints them red with blood, as if to punish them for all of his sins.</p><p>And then, he meets a boy. The closest boy can ever get to bird, who takes mercy on him, grabs his hands, and forces him to stare at the canvas of his wrongs. </p><p>The boy never leaves Sachirou’s mind.</p><p>The scars don’t leave Sachirou’s hands.</p><p>Ten years later, Sachirou wraps micropore tape around a dove’s mangled wings; now a veterinary intern in the bustling city of Tokyo, miles away from home. The dove is calm in his hands, sedated by the sound of his voice, no longer fighting him off with beak and talon.</p><p>“You’re safe with me,” Sachirou whispers, the same words he said to a much-larger winged creature that was draped across his lap only three nights ago. “I’ll take care of you, however long it takes to rest your wings.”</p><p>He pauses. </p><p>“It must get tiring flying all the time, when everyone’s trying to take you down.”</p><p>The dove lets out a weak coo in response. Sachirou smiles, and the nurse beside him nudges him encouragingly, marveling at his handiwork.</p><p>“You have healing hands, Hirugami-san. Has anyone ever told you that?” </p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>Sachirou lives in a single bedroom during his time at university, preferring quiet freedom as he studies for hours upon end and sleeping at times that any athlete in his life would chide him for. He’s free to play his music as loudly as he wants (well, as loud as it <em> will get </em> given his love for underground, muted classics) and free to hide whenever and whoever he’d like.</p><p>Kourai becomes a regular weekend haunt, sitting at the edge of his bed, blow-drying his stark-white hair that’s still wet to the touch. His legs dangle over the edge of the rickety bed frame, swaying back and forth like the times they’d sat by a riverbank after practices in high school, dipping their toes into dark water.</p><p>He may be a star on a re-televised game miles away, but right now, he is Kourai down to his essence, dressed in a one-size too large Schweiden Adlers t-shirt, laughing at one of Sachirou’s casual jokes, and gathering his wings again. </p><p>Kourai preens his feathers, combing a hand through his brilliant snowy hair, inspecting himself in the bedside mirror. He mutters something under his breath about the shower pressure at the university dorms compared to the gym, and the default Adlers t-shirt sizes.</p><p>“I’m telling you, wearing a large only makes you look smaller,” Sachirou muses, flicking through his class notes absently as he hears Kourai go off behind him. “You’ll want something form-fitting.”</p><p>“Do I look like someone who just wants to limit myself due to size?”</p><p>“You look like someone who wants to be referred to as a <em> giant</em>. The only thing giant about you right now is that shirt you’re wearing.”</p><p>Sachirou, whose wit has only sharpened over the years Kourai has known him, never backs down from a light-hearted argument when he has the chance. Kourai pulls off his shirt with one hand— a trick he’s learned from Ushijima, who learned it from some boy in California— balls it up, and throws it at the back of Sachirou’s head.</p><p>Torn from his studies, Sachirou wrestles Kourai on the bed playfully, bare feet in the air and hands full of butterflies. Kourai has a natural advantage, possessing an Olympic grade athlete’s body and strength while all Sachirou wields is a life spent wrestling unruly dogs, not so unlike the one he’s facing now. Fingers laced between fingers, hair tousled by rolling around in sheets and dodging swipes, and matching impish grins, Kourai squeaks out a narrow win, pinning down the much taller boy before him and lifting Sachirou’s wrist in the air.</p><p>“I’ve won,” Kourai chimes out victoriously, breathless from exhilaration. He lowers his voice, mimicking the sound of a volleyball announcer calling out a kill. “And folks, he’s just that good! Hoshiumi Kourai shows us once again that height doesn’t matter as he expertly defeats another 190cm blocker—”</p><p>“<em>Retired </em>blocker,” Sachirou answers, with a bit of a whiny drawl, unable to hide his pout. Even after all of the years of acceptance, he doesn’t want to admit that a part of him still hates losing, even if it is Kourai.</p><p>“Hirugami Fukurou’s little brother,” Kourai continues in his falsetto voice, hands still holding onto Sachirou’s wrist. </p><p>“Now you’re making it worse.”</p><p>Sachirou winces as Kourai swoops down on him, expecting something of an unprompted playful bite like he’s become used to, but instead feels a kiss on his forehead, accompanied by fluttering eyelashes.</p><p>“—who has the most beautiful hands. I couldn’t keep my eyes off them,” Kourai says, olive eyes brightening. “Thanks for making such a great target.”</p><p>He kisses the knuckles of Sachirou’s hand, parted lips brushing the rough edges of scar tissue that reminds him of everything that they’re made of. Affectionately caresses them, remembers the times he’s held them.</p><p>Broken skin, tremors, bleeding. The first time.</p><p>On the other side of the net, fingers sprawled in front of him like an endless forest with no opening for the light to shine through. </p><p>Taking those same fingers in his hand, wrapping them with athletic tape with the care and precision that he’d garnered from his ball boy years. Tearing the tape with his teeth, only inches away from a warm palm. </p><p>In his hands, in his hair, mouth, and peeling back the skin that he wears like armor anywhere else in the world, but here. </p><p>Kourai leaves a trail of stars where  Sachirou’s scars remain. Sees beauty where those would see imperfection, sees Sachirou instead of the mistake others would say he was making, sneaking off to spend intimate weekends with a teammate’s relative. He’s willing to fall from whatever ungodly height for a beautiful boy with messy brown hair and eyes that bring back Nagano sunsets.</p><p>Sachirou leans up, propping himself against a pillow as Kourai falls against him, and they never take their eyes off each other. Not even for a second, because they’re always changing in different ways, since they’ve known each other.</p><p>“Kourai-kun, are we— is this… a mistake?” Sachirou asks, staring at the back of his hand as if he’s seen it for the first time. Something’s changed, ever since Kourai’s kissed it, and he knows it.</p><p>Kourai pauses for a moment, hanging over Sachirou with careful eyes. He’s made his decision, long before coming here. </p><p>“Not one that’ll kill us,” he whispers, curling his fingers around Sachirou’s, finding his way through the forest and shining so brightly. “Not one that isn’t worth making.”</p><p>Sachirou meets Kourai in the middle, as he always has, drawing him into a kiss that will linger on their lips and leave their hearts aching for the weeks to follow. Kourai leaves flowers where there were once ruins, and Sachirou lets those ruins blossom into a home for two.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>ao3 daedalust wrote hiruhoshi again after saying 'im never going to write hiruhoshi again'? more likely than you think! also what the fuck... someone get me out of here. </p><p>i cant stand how comforting hirugami's presence must be to hoshiumi and ever since ive seen how kourai's face looks when its soft i havent known peace.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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